


XX-Beta-12

by Lopadopalis



Series: Yggdrasil [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: And very very pissed off at humanity, Earth gets supremely fucked up, End of the World, Everyone is a God, Genocide, Pseudo-Ridiculous Methods of Ending the World, Ragnarok, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:26:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lopadopalis/pseuds/Lopadopalis
Summary: Long ago, the gods of the version of Earth from universe XX-Beta-12 were buried deep underground.In the time since then, new civilizations have risen and fallen, and the true gods have been forgotten.They're waking up.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: Yggdrasil [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805818
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this world's 2020 is way worse.

_So this is how the world ends._

_Not with a bang, but a whimper._

\- T. S. Eliot, _The Hollow Men_

~~The Inevitable End of All But Me~~

XX-Beta-12

The Solomon Project

Act I: Ascendance

Act II: Defyers

Act III: Protectors

Act IV: Controllers

Golf-213

Intermission: Zero Day

Act V Act I: Shade

Act V Act II: Shatter

Dimensional Drabbles

Endstück

[XX-Beta-12 Selected]

[Welcome, Doctor John Harley.]

* * *

The Gods of XX-Beta-12

~ The Gods of Old ~

John Egbert The Storm God of Storms

Rose Lalonde The Eldritch Goddess of Space

Dave Strider The Crow God of Birds

Jade Harley The Wolf Goddess of the Moon

~ The Zodiac Angels of Old ~

Aradia Megido The Ghost Goddess of the Dead

Tavros Nitram The Fae God of Seasons

Sollux Captor The Bright God of Light

Karkat Vantas The Bloodroot God of Agriculture

Nepeta Leijon The Lion Goddess of the Hunt

Kanaya Maryam The Vampire Goddess of Blood

Terezi Pyrope The Mindless Goddess of Dreams

Vriska Serket The Spider Goddess of Insects

Equius Zahhak The Dark God of Darkness

Gamzee Makara The Clown God of Revelry

Eridan Ampora The Seraph God of the Sun

Feferi Peixes The Witch Goddess of Magic

~ The Gods of New ~

Jane Crocker The Tree Goddess of Nature

Roxy Lalonde The Thief Goddess of Thieves

Dirk Strider The Prince God of Peace

Jake English The Summoner God of Loyalty

~ The Zodiac Angels of New ~

Damara Megido The Clock Goddess of Time

Rufioh Nitram The Breath God of Stories

Mituna Captor The Death God of Disease

Kankri Vantas The Bloodline God of Bonds

Meulin Leijon The Heart Goddess of Love

Porrim Maryam The Bane Goddess of Craft

Latula Pyrope The Dragon Goddess of War

Aranea Serket The Scorpion Goddess of Knowledge

Horuss Zahhak The Centaur God of Horses

Kurloz Makara The Demon God of Chaos

Cronus Ampora The Serpent God of Lies

Meenah Peixes The Shark Goddess of the Sea

~ The Twin Watchers ~

Calliope The Poet Goddess of Life

Caliborn The Lord God of Death


	2. Chapter 2

In a version of Earth in the universe of XX-Beta-12, there were 75 gods. These beings had complete control over this planet, although its inhabitants did not know that was the case. They were, however, terrified of them. One day, they created an organization that would find new ways to contain these entities. This organization would later be called the Sisyphus Project by those who later discovered the history of this organization, in reference to the Greek mythology figure, because of what they did. The leaders of the project used only the most ancient of magic from possibly before even time itself. They spoke to a new entity that lurked in the dark between worlds, which gave them power. Then, they dug 75 pits, and expanded their size into extradimensional spaces that went into the ground for miles with the help of this new entity, which they called the Lady of the Void. One day, the 75 gods suddenly found themselves sucked into these pits, given physical form and temporarily stripped of their godhood. This enraged them. Approximately a year later, 41 of them managed to escape from their prisons, which forced the people of Earth to activate their device from their secondary project, M1NCeMEAT, which was a 76th pit with a smaller size, the large device overtop. One by one at blinding speeds, they pulled in each of the 41 escaped gods to the pit and the device shredded them on their way in. Their flesh was deposited into the one pit.

The Lady of the Void also had a pact with the gods. Upon their death, the entity would have their souls, thus granting them an immortality of sorts. In a way, their death would allow them access to actual eternal life. However, the Lady of the Void plays favourites, and also has a sick sense of humour. They favoured the Gods and Zodiac Angels of Old, not of New or the 41 God-Muses, or the twin Watchers. So, when the 41 God-Muses found themselves thoroughly ground up and demanded their eternal life, the Lady of the Void complied. The entity gave them eternal life by sending them back to their old bodies, which were little more than meat pastes in a huge pile of rotting gore at this point. The souls were trapped in dead bodies. Their rage turned to fear, then their fear turned to horror as they became horrified at what it was, as one day, their souls lumped together into one entity that drove the leech-like meat corpse slowly upwards towards the well out of the pit. As for the 34 remaining gods, their rage stayed throughout the generations and never abated.

The 75 pits became covered by nature and civilization and became all but forgotten, the age old magic still holding strong as ever. The M1NCeMEAT machine was long gone too. History had become myth, then it had become legend, and for a thousand years, the gods passed out of all knowledge. Which brings us to the present day, January 1st, 2020.

A man named Joseph Eli Cartwright is hiking in the French woods when he stumbles across a well. It is a very old well, but he can hear voices calling. He leans his head over it and looks into the pits. He knows what the voices want. He knows what he must do. He takes out his climbing gear and jumps down the well. At the bottom, 41 entities wait. He dies when he lands on the ground, and they leave their bodies behind as his new blood seeps into the flesh pile. Their souls rush into his body. He climbs out of the pit. Then, he starts walking towards civilization.


	3. The Beginning - The First Wave

February 1st.

Somewhere, a man named Joseph Eli Cartwright is walking through the dark with nothing but a lantern to light his way. He finds the well sitting in the center of the cave. The thing using his body as a host laughs. It uses all of its ancient magic and shatters the seal containing the old gods. The cascade begins. One by one, the old defenses fail. 34 breaches occur at the same time, and 34 vengeful gods begin to crawl out of their pits. Joseph Eli Cartwright laughs, and then he screams as his skin rips open and falls to the ground around his body as his flesh writhes and his remnants move away into the darkness.

Somewhere, a government computer screams a warning to all who can hear it.

[MULTIPLE BREACHES DETECTED]

[TOTAL CONTAINMENT FAILURE]

Seattle \- The Storm

New York City \- The Eldritch

Houston \- The Crow

Honolulu \- The Wolf

Hong Kong \- The Ghost

Munich \- The Fae

Sydney \- The Bright

Mumbai \- The Bloodroot

Johannesburg \- The Lion

Bourges \- The Vampire

Tokyo \- The Mindless

Calgary \- The Spider

Venice \- The Dark

San Francisco \- The Clown

London \- The Seraph

Novosibirsk \- The Witch

São Paulo \- The Tree

Washington D.C \- The Thief

Austin \- The Prince

Anchorage \- The Summoner

Bangkok \- The Clock

Berlin \- The Breath

Melbourne \- The Death

New Delhi \- The Bloodline

Cape Town \- The Heart

Paris \- The Bane

Sapporo \- The Dragon

Toronto \- The Scorpion

Florence \- The Centaur

Los Angeles \- The Demon

Edinburgh \- The Serpent

Moscow \- The Shark

North Pole \- The Poet

South Pole \- The Lord

Ancient magic defenses kick in, but it’s not enough. It was never going to be enough. The best that the ancient magic can do is release them slowly in groups rather than all at once.

The first wave is one god.

The second will be five gods.

The third will be five gods.

The fourth will be five gods.

The fifth will be five gods.

The sixth will be five gods.

The seventh will be six gods.

The eighth will be two gods.

There will be no ninth wave.

FEBRUARY

27 year old Thomas Hansen runs his thumbs over his eyelids and sighs. He’s in a hospital. He is a doctor here after all. The storm outside is heavy and battering. Thomas keeps staring at it. He doesn’t understand what’s with the crazy storm. It’s Texas, for god’s sakes. Sure, there’s rain about 20% of the time, but never like this. It’s a bit of a super-storm. Plus, if the news is to be believed, they’re everywhere. All over the world.

Seattle has it the worst. Apparently, it’s practically flooding.

The day seems to go by in a blur. The same things happen. The storm continues.

Eventually, he goes back home in the late evening and finds 28 year old Jack Bennett slouched on their couch, reading some book.

“Hey, J.” he says as he goes past the other man into their kitchen.

“Tom.” Jack says, standing up. “I already made dinner, so…”

“Yeah, I figured you did.” Thomas says. “Considering I work long shifts and you just write…”

Jack snorts at that. “Yeah, good point.” he says.

They run the usual routine of eating dinner, talking for a little while, having a shower, then going to bed together. They’ve followed it for 3 years.


	4. The Awakening - The Second Wave

MARCH

The two of them awake to chaos. They get up, eat breakfast, and then Thomas turns on the television. He silently gestures for Jack to come watch as soon as the video feed resets.

There’s a ferry chugging along Lake Ontario on its way to Toronto. The whole thing suddenly stops dead and people on the deck jerk around. There’s a foaming in the water, and a dark shape lurks. It breaks the surface, revealing itself to be a massive scorpion tail. People scream as it goes through the boat like a knife through butter. People slide down the deck as the ship breaks in two, and are crushed in pincers the size of cars or are deposited into the giant scorpion’s maw. It makes a screaming sound, the camera is torn loose as the scorpion batters the ship, and it drops into the water. The footage ends.

Jack and Thomas watch in silent horror as a worldwide state of emergency is declared.

There’s a woman in Tokyo who sends anyone who views her face into a state of braindeath, the aforementioned giant scorpion up in Ontario, massive tsunamis all along the Russian coasts, a new super virus making its way through Victoria in Australia, and a man teleporting around the planet, assassinating major world leaders. The president, in fact, gets assassinated in the middle of a speech. This ends up stopping after the first of March for some reason.

What surprises Jack and Thomas the most is how much life goes on. Not a lot really changes. Normal life goes on for the two of them, but it feels much more guarded. Jack writes his book, but he’s less perky about it. Thomas still fixes people, but he feels more stressed. Everyone generally gets quieter after the TV thing. There’s a lot of weird talk now. Jack occasionally thinks of reenlisting in the military, but Thomas continues to convince him otherwise. The TV gives monitored updates on everything that’s going on in the world, and the Internet gets clamped by the end of March. Jack and Thomas hug each other closer every night.

THE CHAOS LOG - John Harley

  * Seattle \- Flooded
  * Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion
  * Tokyo \- Mostly braindead
  * Russia \- Suffering intense tsunamis
  * Australia \- Menaced by plague




	5. The Flare - The Third Wave

APRIL

April is when shit hits the fan.

Jack and Thomas are watching the latest news when the power goes dead. No collapsed poles, no nothing. The internet is gone too. The entire network just died. They did manage to gather information about the latest new problems. There’s an army of wolves in Hawaii led by one giant wolf. Knives, swords, axes, and apparently live chainsaws are all falling randomly from the sky in France. The TV flickers on from time to time, but every channel is just the same damn Indian Government figures talking in a voice that is not theirs about how humanity has pissed off the gods. Thus, there are now religious fanatics calling this _ Revelations _ . There’s a woman in Russia who seems to warp and destroy just about anything that gets close to her. Last of all, somebody in Munich created a so-called ‘portal to Eden’ in the center of the city out of thin air. A bunch of people piled into it, and then the world on the other side exploded.

One night, the two of them are huddled in bed, holding each other close.

“I wish it would all go back to the way it was.” Thomas whispers.

“I wish so too, Thomas.” Jack whispers back. “But it will.”

“You really think so?” Thomas asks.

“I know so.” Jack responds. “The government will figure it out.”

Jack kisses Thomas’ head and never lets go of him for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Jack wakes Thomas from his sleep and tells him to pack his bags. Thomas doesn’t question why, and he doesn’t have any arguments against them leaving. They just start driving south, leaving their home behind and heading for Mexico.

THE CHAOS LOG (v2) - John Harley

  * Seattle \- Flooded
  * Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion
  * Tokyo \- Mostly braindead
  * Russia \- Suffering intense tsunamis, transmutation problems
  * Australia \- Menaced by plague
  * Hawaii \- Menaced by a wolf army
  * France \- Falling knives
  * India \- Mind-controlled government
  * Munich \- Exploded




	6. The Craze - The Fourth Wave

MAY

“Where are we going?” Thomas asks.

“I’ve got a safe spot down in Cancun.” Jack explains. “Hopefully, we’ll be safe there.”

“Hopefully, huh?”

“It’s wishful thinking.”

They are both silent as the radio lets the world know about what’s coming next in the apocalypse. The entire south of Brazil’s amazon rainforest has caught fire and is burning as the presenter speaks. There’s a thing in Hong Kong where when certain people kill other people, they come back as ghosts and now China is clogged with sad spirits. The biggest tornado in history is ravaging Berlin. All of South Africa has gone crazy and is killing everyone else. There is a demonic figure just sitting in Los Angeles, which was at first killing people and stopped doing so after a little while. Now it just sits there. Waiting. Who knows what for.

“We’ll make it.” Jack keeps repeating under his breath.

They don’t stick to the roads after the chaos starts on the freeways. There’s rogue soldiers just gunning down people to ‘spare them’ or whatever bullshit they happen to be spewing. Jack breaks one of their necks and takes his M16 and the man’s other weapons.

“C’mon.” he says to Thomas, and the two of them dart into the woods, their car left behind.

“What are we going to do, anyway?” Thomas practically whimpers that night as they sit around a campfire. Jack puts his arms around him.

“Like I said, we’ve got a bunker. We can go there. We’ll get the hell out of dodge.” Jack whispers back to him. There’s no one around for miles, but it doesn’t change how on their guard they are.

Later, they’re wandering through the woods and Jack stops, stares back at the trees behind them as if he’s looking for something.

“Hey, Jack. Come on.” Thomas calls from up ahead.

“Yeah, I just…” Jack says, pausing. “Just looking.”

“Dream too much of the trees and you’ll forget the sunlight.” Thomas says.

“No, no, no,” Jack corrects him, “It’s ‘dream too much of the sun and you forget the trees’.”

Thomas snickers a little. “Just applicable to our current situation.”

“They’re both applicable, I’m fairly certain.” Jack shoots back.

Thomas gives Jack a pat on the back, and they keep moving.

“Hey, Jack.” Thomas says one night while they’re trying to sleep in a tree.

“Mm?”

“How much of your childhood do you remember?”

“What the hell kind of question is that?” Jack asks with a snort.   
“Well-” Thomas starts, but Jack cuts him off.

“It is the literal apocalypse, happening notably in 2020, not 2012, and you’re asking about how much of my childhood I remember?” Jack asks. Thomas shrugs.

“Well I-” he starts, then pauses. “I’m just wondering. All this has got me thinking about it.”

Thomas pauses again, and stares out into the distance. “About the good old days. Y’know?”

Jack nods, and thinks. “I have flashes of my memories of my teenage years, but not much under ten. Guess I just emptied it all out.” he shrugs.

They pass through an empty town the next morning in the early hours. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but its light is peeking over the horizon. The town is empty of life, anyways. Jack finds a dead kid with his face all eaten by maggots, and he pukes in shock for a while and then cries. Thomas comforts him, and they just keep going.

THE CHAOS LOG (v3) - John Harley

  * Seattle \- Flooded
  * Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion
  * Tokyo \- Mostly braindead
  * Russia \- Suffering intense tsunamis, transmutation problems
  * Australia \- Menaced by plague
  * Hawaii \- Menaced by a wolf army
  * France \- Falling knives
  * India \- Mind-controlled government
  * Germany \- F6 tornado
  * Brazil \- Mostly on fire
  * China \- Ghosts everywhere
  * South Africa \- Killing frenzies
  * Los Angeles \- Demon sitting in the city




	7. The Time in Between

A god in human form is crossing the ocean, carrying a hurricane with him. He’s headed for Tokyo to say hello to an old friend. Or ally of a sort. He passes the many bodies taking up the city, now being battered by intense rain, which is filling its streets.

“Hey asshole, you’re stealing my thunder.” Terezi aka Mindless says to the new arrival.

John aka Storm shrugs and gestures to the sky. “Actually I’m bringing the thunder.”

She punches him on the shoulder. “Shut up.” she says. He chuckles.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

“Not too shabby. Having fun picking off all these people.” she responds.

“I just prefer to strike them with lightning.” he says.

“Booooo.” she responds in a bored tone.

“What?” he asks.

“So you aren’t really getting your hands dirty?” she asks.

“What’s wrong with that? It’s not like I’m sinning against myself.” he responds.

“What is it with you and ‘I’m sinning against myself’ jokes?” she asks him, and he shrugs.

“Because they’re funny.” he says in a totally self confident manner.

She snorts. “Bullshit.” she responds.

“What?” he asks. “My jokes are funny.”

“You are absolutely terrible at humour.” she responds.

“Hey.” he suddenly says after a silence.

“What?” she asks him.

“Have you ever thought about the morality of… this?”

“The morality of what? Give me more clues here.”

“What we’re doing.” he says.

“What specifically?” she asks.

“You know, killing all of these people.” he says as if the answer is obvious.

“I thought you were gonna rag on about fucking up the planet.” she responds.

“Well, I’m just thinking… they didn’t trap us.”

“So?”

“The people thousands of years ago did, but these people didn’t. They have no idea that we exist. They’re terrified, but they’re not to blame.” Storm says.

“What’s the difference between them? They’re humans, Storm.” Mindless says. “They’re fallible. They’re destroying their world.”

“Well so are we.” Storm argues. Mindless sighs.

“We can rebuild, can’t we?” she argues back.

They stand in silence for a while. The silence is broken by a new voice.

“What up, fuckers!” shouts Meenah aka Shark (A name which others have insulted her for and faced the consequences of firsthand) as she flies into the plaza where the other two are.

“Shark? What the hell are you doing here?” Storm asks, confused.

“I got bored of Russia. There’s not enough coastlines.” Shark says.

“So you’re here now, then.” Mindless says.

“Yep. This whole place is gonna sink.” Shark says with that evil grin of hers.

“Now you’re stealing  _ my _ thunder.” Storm says, and she flips him off.

“So what the hell is our plan after the fact, anyway?” Shark asks. “Hey, Stormy, you’re at least nominally in charge, what’s our plan?”

“I don’t fucking know.” he responds. “We haven’t even ended humanity, one thing at a time.”

“I still think that we should flood the whole planet and then start again.” Shark says.

“Not a bad idea, but I’m pretty sure that you’re biased.” Mindless says.

“Hell yeah, I’m biased.” Shark says.

“Hey, do you guys hear that? Besides the storm, I mean.” Storm says.

“Here come the tsunamis.” Shark says, and shrugs.

“Guess I’m moving bases then.” Mindless mutters.

Japan is somehow completely flooded within the hour. The situation defies gravity, but there are not a lot of physicists worrying about water’s behaviour at this time to care anyway.

THE CHAOS LOG (v4) - John Harley

  * Seattle \- Flooded
  * Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion
  * Japan \- Flooded
  * Russia \- Transmutation problems
  * Australia \- Menaced by plague
  * Hawaii \- Menaced by a wolf army
  * France \- Falling knives
  * India \- Mind-controlled government
  * Germany \- F6 tornado
  * Brazil \- Mostly on fire
  * China \- Ghosts everywhere, tsunamis, super storms
  * South Africa \- Killing frenzies
  * Los Angeles \- Demon sitting in the city




	8. The Clock Stops - The Fifth Wave

JUNE

“Thomas.” Jack says. “Wake up.”

“But it’s not morning yet.” Thomas grumbles.

“My clock says it’s 11:00 AM. The sky is still dark, and the stars haven’t moved.” Jack says.

“What?” Thomas asks.

“I think Earth just came to a halt.” Jack says.

“And we didn’t all go flying?” Thomas half-asks. Jack shrugs.

“We gotta keep moving.” Jack says. Thomas doesn’t protest.

They make their way down the tree and set off once more.

The two Americas are in a constant state of night, while the rest of the continents experience either constant day or dusk/dawn. The Internet gets back online for a little while, and people mainly just shout about the coming of god or their own problems. It doesn’t last for very long, as it blinks out once more. Somewhere in New York City, there’s a whole bunch of eldritch horrors going around killing people. There are giant eggs falling all over Alberta that hatch giant spiders. In South Africa, there are now lions everywhere in addition to the killing frenzies. To top it all off, some guy appeared in London claiming to be the avatar of god, and he started a religious civil war as people ‘debated’ about how real this guy was. Now there are ‘angels’ spreading all over Great Britain. The entirety of Brazil has been burned to a crisp, and the flames are spreading across the whole of South America. Apparently there’s a woman walking through the flames dropping tree seeds everywhere, which is as ridiculous as it is disturbing. The tsunamis stopped in Russia, but the north is all flooded. Japan is gone, and now the brain-breaking woman, the bulk of the super-storms, and a whole bunch of tsunamis are in China. It’s now raining knives in France, straight up. The F6 tornado bulldozing its way in from Germany isn’t helping people, because knives are now being flung everywhere else, too. In short, the world is getting worse.

Jack and Thomas are still going. There’s still more weirder stuff in their day to day lives as they trek through rural Mexico. Some of the weird fire has been making its way in specific lines up through Mexico. The people it kills are turning into trees. Specifically, trees that slash at whoever comes closest and seem immune to fire, something that was demonstrated when Jack and Thomas spotted somebody getting too close and who proceeded to get ripped to shreds.

“New life blows.” complains Thomas at one point. “I hate walking and my feet are sore.”

“It’s the end of the world man, get used to it.” Jack responds.

“Just one thing about that.” Thomas says.

“Yeah?” Jack asks.

“One thing I don’t get is… if what some people were saying on the internet before it went down again is true…” Thomas starts, and Jack cuts him off.

“It’s bullshit man. It’s not true. It can’t be.” Jack says.

“Well that’s one of the things I’m thinking about! We don’t want to believe that these are our forgotten gods, because it goes against our belief system.” Thomas says.

“Point is, assuming these are gods… they should have total power. Even if it's diminished so they can only assume control over Earth… they should be able to wipe us all out in an instant. So why aren’t they?” Thomas asks. Jack pauses.

“Guess they wanna have fun.” is all Jack has to say.

They continue onwards through the eternal night.

THE CHAOS LOG (v5) - John Harley

Seattle \- Flooded

Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion

Japan \- Flooded

Russia \- North is flooded, transmutation problems

Australia \- Menaced by plague

Hawaii \- Menaced by a wolf army

France \- Falling knives, F6 tornado

India \- Mind-controlled government

Germany \- Destroyed

Brazil \- Entirely on fire

China \- Ghosts everywhere, brain-breaking woman, storms, tsunamis

South Africa \- Killing frenzies, lions everywhere

Los Angeles \- Demon sitting in the city

New York City \- Lost to eldritch horrors

Alberta \- Giant spiders

Great Britain \- Angelic figures killing people

Mexico \- Tree people

Internet \- Down again

Earth \- Rotation ceased


	9. The Sky Falls - The Sixth Wave

JULY

The ‘morning’ (it’s still always night) is shattered by a large  _ crash _ sound in the distance. Thomas jumps up and peeks with binoculars at the horizon.   
“What the fuck?” Thomas wonders aloud as he watches the distance.

“What is it?” Jack asks.

“Just come see.” Thomas says.

Jack sticks his head out from behind the boulder they’re hiding behind and takes the binoculars Thomas stole off some corpse a few days back, looking through them.

“O…kay.” is his reaction.

The goddess who deals with nature, the Tree, the goddess who deals with the moon, the Wolf, and the goddess who deals with the sun, the Eldritch, are all blasting magical lasers at… something. Jack isn’t sure what the hell he’s looking at. It looks like a giant pillar of screaming meat covered in eyes, mouths, and tendrils stabbing at its attackers. There’s a large hole in the ground around it, and judging by the mini dust tornado around it, it just got here. It’s gnashing its hundreds of teeth and screaming at them as the four entities fight three on one.

“I have no words.” Jack finally says.

“We should keep moving.” Thomas says. “Before that gets too close.”

“Agreed.” Jack says. They scoop up their belongings and take off in a sprint.

The world’s current situation is continuing to escalate. Italy is covered in complete darkness from some indiscernible source that is also killing all of the plants quicker for some reason. A giant dragon has risen out of the ocean where Japan once was and is now attacking eastern Russia. There are crows all over Houston pecking people to death. San Francisco is now a giant carnival that is fucking with everybody who didn’t get out of it when they should’ve. Also hostile horses are all over south Europe. The tree people in Mexico are all gone, and South America is burnt to a crisp. The eastern half of China is flooded by water and ghosts. The storms have stopped and are going back to flooding Washington. The plague in Australia has spread to all of Oceania and is making its way up through Vietnam. The wolf army has moved from Hawaii to British Columbia. The Indian government is still spilling bullshit about the end of the world, Germany is still flattened (and covered in knives), South Africa is full of killing, and China is still getting utterly squashed by the elements.

THE CHAOS LOG (v6) - John Harley

Washington \- Flooded

Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion

Japan \- Flooded

Russia \- North is flooded, transmutation problems, giant dragon in the east

Oceania \- Menaced by plague

British Columbia \- Menaced by a wolf army

France \- Falling knives, F6 tornado

India \- Mind-controlled government

Germany \- Destroyed

China \- Ghosts everywhere, brain-breaking woman, tsunamis, half-flooded

South Africa \- Killing frenzies, lions everywhere

Los Angeles \- Demon sitting in the city

New York City \- Lost to eldritch horrors

Alberta \- Giant spiders

Italy \- Darkened

San Francisco \- Giant carnival

North Europe \- Angelic figures killing people

South Europe \- Hostile horse armies

South America \- Burnt to a crisp

Internet \- Down again

Earth \- Rotation ceased


	10. The Burning - The Seventh Wave

AUGUST

A giant snake-eel-serpent thing is going through the Atlantic ocean and picking off the boats of anyone who thought the seas were safe. Austin, Texas, has been turned into some sort of kangaroo court of a kingdom with some guy acting like a prince having taken over the minds of anyone left. Most of the trees left in the world uprooted themselves and went looking for blood. All the ones in South America and Mexico are already gone, and they did nothing to North America for some reason. People are turning into vampires in France and are unaffected by the knife rain, aka it stops whenever they’re out in the open. Washington (the city) also plainly disappears, along with everyone in it. Apparently cities are vanishing into thin air all over the eastern coast of the US. The worst thing to happen in August and the worst thing to happen so far is that the side of the Earth that is stuck in eternal daylight, all of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia; gets cooked by the sun. The only good news is that that caused all of the problems in Europe to basically become pointless because everyone there is all already dead.

With South America already gone, it leaves just one and a half continents + Greenland to go.

“Let him go.” Jack says calmly in that cold voice he gets whenever he’s serious.

The man holding a knife to Thomas’ throat sweats as Jack raises the M16 and aims it at him.

“I said, let him go.” Jack repeats again.

“Yeah, well hand over all that food or I kill him.” the man says.

“Jack? Please just do what he says.” Thomas whimpers.

“Drop the fucking gun.” the man hisses.

“Well I-” Jack starts, and the man cuts him off.

“Drop the fucking gun!” he shouts, and Jack sighs and tosses the M16 to the ground.

“Just hold on baby. Alright. Fine then.” Jack says, and goes over to his pack, and rummages through the bag. He tosses out some bean cans, humming.

“Hey Jack? Could you hurry it up?” Thomas asks.

“Shut up.” the man grunts, and Thomas gulps.

Jack keeps taking out cans and setting them on the ground next to him, and then pulls out a revolver and blows a hole in the man’s skull. The sound echoes through the forest, and a few birds take off. The man gasps, groans, drops the knife, and stumbles backwards onto the ground where he dies. Thomas stands in shock for a moment before running to Jack. They embrace, and Jack tousles Thomas’ hair.

“It’s alright.” Jack whispers as the other man weeps in relief.

“You killed him, though.” Thomas whispers back.

“He would have killed both of us anyway.” Jack says. “Kind of surprised he didn’t, actually.”

“You aren’t very good at comforting me about those that you kill.” Thomas mutters.

“Guess I’ve just gotten numb about it.” Jack responds.

Storm - Washington

Eldritch - New York

Crow - Texas

Wolf - British Columbia

Ghost - China

Fae - Germany

Bright - Australia

Bloodroot - India

Lion - South Africa

Vampire - France

Mindless - China

Spider - Alberta

Dark - Italy

Clown - California

Seraph - Great Britain

Witch - Russia

Tree - Mexico

Thief - US East Coast

Prince - Texas, US

Summoner - Alaska

Clock - China

Breath - Germany

Death - Australia

Bloodline - India

Heart - South Africa

Bane - France

Dragon - Russia

Scorpion - Ontario

Centaur - Italy

Demon - California

Serpent - Atlantic Ocean

Shark - China

THE CHAOS LOG (v7) - John Harley

Washington \- Flooded

Ontario \- Menaced by a giant scorpion

British Columbia \- Menaced by a wolf army

Los Angeles \- Demon sitting in the city

New York \- Lost to eldritch horrors

Alberta \- Giant spiders

San Francisco \- Giant carnival

South America \- Burnt to a crisp

Everywhere \- Getting stormy as fuck

Earth \- Rotation ceased

Half of the Earth \- Scorched


	11. The End - The Eighth Wave

SEPTEMBER

Thirty two gods move from their positions and end up in Greenland, which is immediately barraged by all the problems the rest of the world has had to deal with over the past few months.

“I can’t believe that you scorched half the planet.” Storm grumbles.

Bright shrugs. “Well, then y’all should have kept an eye on me.”

“So, we’re all going to bulldoze through North America, then?” asks Eldritch.

“Yeah, and Bloodline’s going to yap on about the end over TV.” says Bloodroot.

“Shut up, you guys know I’m good at speeches.” Bloodline complains.

“What’s our plan when we’re done with this, anyway?” wonders Dragon.

“Well, Poet and Lord will show up and kill all the humans for good.” Storm says.

“No, I mean  _ after _ that. Will we remake humanity or something?” Dragon asks.

“Ah, you feel the same way as I do.” Storm says.

“We could make a new race.” Seraph says.

“Yes, but that’s something tried and true.” Witch says, groaning.

“We also need to do something about our lack of power.” Shark adds.

“Well, we do have a big problem.” Tree says.

“Literally.” Wolf adds.

“Problem? What problem?” Death asks.

“There’s a meat monster made from our 41 muses just sitting in Mexico.” Eldritch says.

“So, we should go kill it, then.” Crow says, more answering his own question than posing it.

“Well, if we want to free them from torment, yeah.” Wolf says.

“It does hate itself.” Tree says.

“It’s been pretty hard to kill, so we should take it on together.” Eldritch adds.

“We should probably scout it out first.” Lion suggests.

“Agreed.” Storm says. “Eldritch, Crow, Wolf, come with me.”

Just like that, the four old gods take off into the sky and head south.

Wolf briefly pauses. “Oh, Bloodroot, Vampire, I need you guys to assess the state of the universe’s ‘blood’, because something’s been wrong with it for a while.”

“Wait, what?” Bloodroot asks.

“Come back!” Vampire calls, then hisses in annoyance. “Come on, ‘Root, with me.”

Storm, Eldritch, Crow, and Wolf fly through the sky over Canada and North America.

“Think we should bother with them?” Wolf asks.

“Nah, they’re all going to be dead soon anyway.” Storm says.

“Right.” Wolf nods.

They don’t stop flying until they reach Mexico and find a large serpentine creature composed entirely of flesh crawling along the ground. It turns its hundreds of eyes up to face them and wails an incomprehensible mess of syllables and sounds.

“Alright, I’m not usually surprised, but what the fuck.” Crow says.

“Well hello there.” Storm mutters.

“The only thing I could actually understand last time was it begging us to kill it.” Eldritch says.

“Hold on, what’s it doing?” Crow asks.

“I think it’s-” Wolf starts, but doesn’t get any farther.

The thing extends four tentacles from its body, shooting out towards them. They in turn split into many different vein-like parts which twist and coil around each other and attempt to wrap themselves around the gods. It gets Storm first, stabbing him through the back and holding him aloft. Eldritch dodges enough, but gets pierced in the stomach. Crow dodges most of them, but gets stabbed by several more all through his chest. Wolf goes last, but instead of being run through, she gets caged in the tendrils. The four of them get drawn into the thing’s body, and it screams something incomprehensible. Something changes inside the four gods’ minds.

Something snaps.

“This doesn’t make any sense…” Vampire mutters.

“What doesn’t?” Bloodroot asks.

“Well, it’s definitely not good.” Vampire sighs. “When the last humans we saw before, well, this, destroyed the god-muses, something was irreparably changed.” she taps the side of her head and growls in frustration. “But I can’t figure it out.”

“Then I’ll do it. Here, let me at ‘em. I have my name for a reason” Bloodroot says, and examines the universe. He pauses.

“Not good. Not good at all.” he mutters, his face pale.

“What? What is it?” asks Vampire.

“Well, when the god-muses died, reality was heavily damaged.” Bloodroot explains. “Reality is good at healing, but the death of 41 gods and the trapping of 34 others… it damaged it beyond repair. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Vampire asks.

“It healed, but… it healed incorrectly.” Bloodroot continues. “The universe is undamaged now, but the damage…” he pauses.

“What?” Vampire asks. “Go on.”

“It has cancer. The universe  _ literally _ has cancer.” Bloodroot says. “And that thing in Mexico? The physical manifestation of it. The souls driving it… they aren’t gods anymore.”

“Then what are they?” Vampire asks, but she already thinks she knows the answer.

Bloodroot swallows. “Tumors.”

Jack and Thomas are hiking through the forest in the constant darkness.

“Almost there.” Jack keeps muttering. “Almost there.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything. The whole trek has sort of drained him.

The sky suddenly splits in two. Half burns a deep red colour and half burns a bright green.

“Woah, what the-” and “Jack?” from Jack and Thomas respectively are all they get out before the Poet and the Lord enact their part in the destruction of humanity.

With the Poet’s action, half of what is left becomes either an angel or a demon. Jack grows black crow-like wings, while Thomas grows white dove-like wings. They shine with darkness and light respectively. Before they can react further, the Lord acts.

Every human left on Earth dies instantly.


	12. Population: Nada

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's about to get anime

“Storm is gone, so I am here in his stead.” Lord explains. “I’m sure that you are all aware of the ‘the universe has cancer’ spiel. So I’ll save it.”

The twenty four zodiac angels old and new, the four new gods, and the twin watchers are just sort of standing around some big courtroom, or what’s left of it.

“Our first objective is to kill the five tumors, or get rid of them somehow if killing them proves too much of a hassle.” Lord says. “Also, I am relinquishing our god names, that should strip the accidental traitors of their power.”

“Sweet.” Gamzee says. “I get my name back.”

“I already hate this.” Damara growls. “I can feel my power breaking.”

“You’re going to have to get used to it, sis.” Aradia says. “This is efficient.”

“Better we fight weaker than them stronger, yes?” Eridan asks, and Caliborn nods.

“That is indeed my line of thinking.” the watcher says.

“We should ideally take them in groups.” Calliope adds. “Groups of 6.”

“Straight to the point, aren’t you?” Caliborn asks. “Can’t let them settle into their lack of power?”

Calliope shrugs. “Our universe is rotting to death as we speak, I’d rather fix the problem first.”

Caliborn sighs. “Never could take it easy, eh sister?”

Calliope smiles and nods.

“Alright then.” Caliborn says. “I say that Calliope and I take the new gods to deal with that… thing in Mexico.”

“Sick.” Roxy says. “Hopefully this goes better with us than with the old gang.”

“As long as we don’t let our guard down.” Jane says.

“I do believe we can handle it, gents.” Jake says.

Dirk doesn’t really say anything. He’s too busy being a stone cold motherfucker.

“That’s our group done, who’s going to handle John and Jade?” Calliope asks.

“I say that all of us old zodiac angels deal with them.” Feferi says.

“Are we sure about that?” Tavros cautiously asks.

“Scared?” Vriska asks.

“Just concerned. That’s two of them.” Tavros responds.

“But there will be twelve of us.” Terezi points out. Tavros bites his lip and nods.

“I take it then that by default,” Meenah says, “That the new angels will take on Rose and Dave.”

“It does seem so.” Caliborn says.

“So much for groups of six.” Mituna says.

“There need not be any sort of compliance to such things, Mituna.” Kankri says.

“Kankri, don’t. You’ll just encourage him.” Latula says.

“How? I fail to see the reasoning.” Kankri says, and Latula scowls.

“Just shut it, man.” Aranea says.

Caliborn suddenly snarls and stands, and Calliope gives a little gasp.

“Tell me you didn’t all just feel that.” Caliborn growls.

“Feel what?” Kanaya asks.

“What are you talking about?” Roxy asks.

“All the humans should be dead, yes?” Caliborn asks.

“Yes.” Jane says. “I thought you killed all of them…?”

Calliope gulps a little. “Two of them just came back to life.”

“And there’s a third new one.” Caliborn adds, snarling.

Jack opened his eyes and blinked. The sky was definitely still torn in two, leaving a mess of colours down the middle. He groaned, and stood. He had wings. When did those get there?

“Jack?” Thomas asks. He has wings too. “What the fuck?”   
“I don’t know either, man.” Jack says, and shrugs.

“I know what this is.” a new voice says, and they turn.

The man standing at the fringes of the trees is dressed in a black suit. His blonde hair is tussled, and his scarlet shades hang loosely on his face, covering his orange eyes. There’s a katana of some kind hanging on his back from a strap. He waves his gloved hand.

“Hello.” the man says calmly. “I am Dirk T-…Strider.”

“Who the hell are you?” Jack asks cautiously, stepping in front of Thomas. Dirk frowns.

“I just… said that, anyway, this world is entirely dead, save for a few people. Population; 34 gods, the three of us, and one meat monster.” Dirk says, and shrugs. “I brought you back to life because I want to offer you a job of sorts in exchange for getting out of this shithole.”

“Why the hell should we trust you?” Thomas asks.

“Maybe you shouldn’t trust me.” Dirk says, shrugging. “The reason why I selected the two of you is because though neither of you would admit, you would prefer an adventurous lifestyle. That’s why you had the Cancun bunker in the first place, isn’t it Jack?”

“Well, I…” Jack says, but can’t think of what to say. His expression becomes downcast.

“And Thomas, you’d never admit it, but you’re kind of getting off on this scenario. End of the world, hiking in the woods as it all crumbles around you.” Dirk says. Thomas looks away from Jack’s gaze as the other man stares at him.

“Statistically speaking, you two happened to be the ones on the planet before all this who would prefer that lifestyle the most that are also socially compatible.” Dirk says.

“So what, you raised us from the dead?” Jack asks.

“Yes. Because in short, I seek to fulfill your wishes.” Dirk says. “Like I said, there’s a job, but the fun is the job.”

“And if we refuse…?” Thomas cautiously asks.

“Then I suppose I’ll just put you back into death, because there’s not much here left. And by not much, I mean basically nothing.” Dirk says, shrugging. He kicks a pebble.

“Doesn’t sound like much of a choice.” Jack says.

“Well, you can join your species in Heaven, or travel the multiverse. The former is boring compared to the latter.” Dirk says. “I probably should have mentioned Heaven the first time.”

Jack turns to Thomas. “Which would you prefer?” he asks.

“Well, which would  _ you _ prefer?” Thomas asks.

“How about we both just speak at once?” Jack proposes, and Thomas nods.

“Adventuring.” they both say at once, and then exchange a glance.

“So be it.” Dirk says, and opens a portal in the air. “This way.” he says, and steps through it. Thomas and Jack look at each other for a moment, then step forwards.

“What’s with the wings, do you think?” Thomas asks.

“Hell if I can guess.” Jack says.

They vanish to lands unknown.

Elsewhere, 30 gods spread across the planet, hunting for 5 targets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk what you doing there 0_o


	13. Now it's a party

UGANDA

John is sitting in the middle of a scorched jungle in Uganda. Jade is a couple miles away, splashing around in a river for some reason. Not that he cares about that. He’s too busy worrying about his lessened power, courtesy of being given his name back. He feels the twelve arrive behind him and sighs.

“You’ve come to kill me?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

“C’mon then, let’s get it over with.” he says, turning. “Better set the ambience.” he snaps his fingers, and it begins to rain. Facing him are the twelve old zodiac angels. Nepeta is in giant lion form, and Vriska is in giant spider form.

“Now it’s a party.” John says. “So let’s get it started.” he cracks his knuckles.

**STRIFE**

Aradia is the first to attack, drawing some sword and flying at him. John slams her aside into a tree. Sollux follows by blasting a beam of light at him and slowly advancing. John twirls his wrist and Sollux is knocked to the ground by a beam of lightning. He rises into the sky, and the others follow one by one. Vriska cannot fly whilst in giant spider form, so she just gets bigger and bigger. Terezi and Kanaya get to John first, and start stabbing with swords. He shocks Kanaya backwards and slams Terezi to the ground. Then he does the same to Eridan, who gets too close for comfort. Tavros and Gamzee restrain him on both sides as Karkat swings at him with sickles. He laughs and tears himself free of their grasps, headbutting Karkat when he arrives and causing the man to go into a flying spinout. He slashes at Tavros, but his attack is blocked by Gamzee, who snarls at him.

His back is turned and Feferi stabs at him, so he does his best to dodge the trident and smack Gamzee away with it, before slashing Feferi’s arm with it and sending her backwards in the sky. Karkat comes back around alongside Tavros and cuts John on the shoulder. John snarls and electrocutes Karkat, causing him to fall from the sky. Tavros comes at him next, and they briefly grapple in the sky before John knees him and causes him to fall to the ground. Aradia comes back up to him alongside Sollux, and a barrage of light blinds him as ghosts surround him and tear at his godly soul. He chuckles.

“Ghosts and light? Is that all you’ve got?” he roars, and strikes through his attackers with ethereal lightning, striking Sollux’s soul with it and sending him crashing back into the trees.

Aradia backpedals as John smacks the sword out of her hand and uses it to backhand slash Equius in the chest when he gets too close. He swings it again and just misses taking out her eyes. Terezi comes back and he zaps her with such energy that she’s sent careening off into a nearby mountain. Kanaya flings a chainsaw at him and rips Aradia’s sword from his hands as a result. He growls and mutters to himself as he sets the forest around her alight with lightning. Eridan comes back up, accompanied by Gamzee. Eridan’s arm becomes a flaming sword, and he slashes at John, who just barely dodges. Gamzee grabs John around the throat, so he kicks him in the chest and spins backwards, instantly filling his lungs with air. Eridan stabs at him again, so he intensifies the rain, causing the fires below to dampen, the dirt to turn to mud, and Eridan’s sword to steam.

“As if that’s going to do anything.” Eridan says, and laughs. John raises his eyebrows, and lightning arcs through the air, concentrated by the falling rain, and combines with the sword, shocking the god out of the sky with an “G’eugh!” sound. He lands near Nepeta, who has been watching the treeline in giant lion form for quite some time.

Feferi comes back towards him, and he rolls his eyes and zaps her. Tavros joins Gamzee in the air again, and John decides to stop playing games when Equius takes advantage of the situation and breaks several fingers in John’s left hand. He snarls, slams Equius backwards with a blast of lightning, then ‘kills’ two birds with one stone by striking Tavros with billions of volts of electricity and causing him to crumple and fall to the ground like a stone. Gamzee shouts in alarm and dives to check on him. He turns his attention to Karkat, and kicks him in the stomach back into the treeline. That’s when he notices the giant spider who has been growing for the past minute, and is now about half a mile long, coming towards him. Vriska swings one of her legs, and he just dodges.

A few more swings, and John is sent tumbling down near Gamzee, who is busy holding Tavros as the second of the twelve zodiac angels dies. The remaining 11 feel the shock, but that doesn’t stop Vriska. He dodges one of her sharp claw-legs, and strikes her with a massive bolt of lightning, tearing away her giant physical form. She falls into the trees in her human body. Gamzee sees John and snarls.

“You motherfucking killed my best friend.” he growls, and heads for John.

“And you’re next.” John says, and smiles. Gamzee cocks his head to the side.

A moment later, a giant wolf tears through the treeline, pins Gamzee beneath its front paw, and begins tearing him apart in its jaws. His screams turn to gurgles in an instant, and then they are no more. Two down, ten to go. The pain intensifies in all their chests. Nepeta snarls at Jade, and the giant lion leaps at the giant wolf. They begin to fight in the clearing, tearing bloody wounds in each other’s flesh, lifeblood leaking into the wet mud. Thunder crackles.

Terezi comes flying back from the mountain and raises her sword, chopping off John’s right forearm. He screams, and punches her backwards with his broken left hand. He lightning zaps her into the ground, and then zaps her about half a dozen more times until Aradia comes up behind him and stabs a knife into his shoulder. He kicks her backwards and then grabs her head and breaks her neck, snarling. Three down, nine to go. Sollux screams at him and blasts him through the air and into a river. Sollux blasts him again, and burns John’s skin, charring it. John growls, then roars in fury. He blasts lightning back at Sollux and at Feferi when she exits the trees. Sollux is practically incinerated, and Feferi catches fire, screams, and stumbles into the water. She doesn’t get up. Even if she’s still alive, John doesn’t bother finishing her off. She’s as good as dead. Four and a half down, seven and a half to go.

As John stumbles back into the wounds, nursing his bleeding stump of an arm, Kanaya swings her chainsaw at him, and he just dodges having his head chopped off. Equius swings at him from behind, and he dances through the forest trying to avoid their attacks.

“Jade!” he calls frantically. “Help!”

Elsewhere, Jade snarls, leaving an injured Nepeta behind, and bounds through the woods. She bats Equius aside into a tree like a child’s toy, then stomps him for good measure. Kanaya swings her chainsaw and cuts a gash across Jade’s nose. She howls, then snarls and snaps up Kanaya and shakes her, before throwing her bloody and bitten form against a rock. Kanaya gasps for air and her breathing is labored. Karkat drops out of the sky and stabs twin sickles into each of Jade’s eyes. The sound the wolf makes is a cross between a scream and a growl, and Karkat hacks at Jade’s head as she tries and fails to shake him off. John raises his hand to blast Karkat when Eridan sets him alight with flame and sends him stumbling back into the river.

He stands above the river as thunder crackles, and lets his right forearm be replaced with crackling electricity in the form of a sword to parry Eridan’s sword. They go back and forth while Jade howls in the woods and thrashes as she fights Karkat. Trees collapse, and the blaze in the forest spreads, catching Jade’s fur alight, but also setting Karkat on fire judging by the pained screaming coming from him as well. John parries an attack from Eridan and cuts his sword hand off. He nearly strikes him until Feferi takes the hit for Eridan, briefly standing up in the water only to get shocked. She drops dead, and Eridan stumbles back in pain. John doesn’t waste time, he just cuts the angel’s head off. Four and two halves to go. The rain increases, and the fire in the woods surprisingly goes out.

John pauses to wash his face of blood, but breaks into a sprint when he hears Jade’s cries cease. As soon as he reaches the bank, he sees two confirmed kills. Kanaya looks to have succumbed to her wounds, and Equius looks to have been stepped on and pulped in the chaos. John is knocked backwards into the water again by a giant spider about his size, Terezi standing on the bank with her sword out. John panics as Vriska bites his left ear off, and turns his shock hand into a dagger, stabbing Vriska more physically than electrically one, two, three times. Then again. Again. Again. Again. He doesn’t stop stabbing, puncturing about one and a half-dozen holes in her chest until she goes limp and stays dead as a giant spider. Terezi snarls and jams her sword through Vriska’s corpse and into John’s gut. He gasps and blasts her backwards in the eyes with energy. She gasps, shouts, and rolls around in a panic, clutching her eyes. She screams and stabs at nothing with her second sword. He carefully pushes the spider and the sword off of him and wiggles out from underneath.

“So then, you’ve gone blind.” he taunts, and Terezi swings her sword without seeing where he actually is. He sidesteps her attacks and grabs her arm, forcing her to stab herself in the chest. He turns to the two corpses in the woods. Huge holes in her chest. A mess of gore. Then he looks at the four bodies in the water. A charred corpse. His head lying downstream. Her sword in her own chest. A giant spider with a sword in its back and blood leaking from its stomach. Clutching his stomach wound, he limps forwards back through the woods.

Jade’s corpse is in the same clearing as Nepeta’s and all the others. All that’s left standing is Karkat and John. The rain pours down from the sky. Just like John, Karkat is covered in cuts and bruises and blood, most of it not his own. John turns the electric dagger on his arm into a hammer. Karkat draws his twin sickles.

“Let’s finish this.” Karkat says.

“Always willing to.” John says, coughing up his own godhood blood.

The one on one battle is a coordinated dance of sorts, and neither ends up using their special powers. It’s almost like a ritualistic combat in a way. There’s a respect for the other in each of their attacks. John isn’t sure how long the battle lasts, could be hours. It’s hard to tell when the sky is all overcast and grey. John isn’t sure how much blood both of them lost, how many more wounds they sustain, but he is sure of when Karkat finally gets the jump on him and embeds one of his sickles in John’s heart. John gasps, groans, and pitches backwards, landing on his back. Karkat doesn’t wait for John to get back up, pulverizing him with the sickle.

Karkat snarls when John is significantly gored, and then steps back and slumps against the base of a tree. Karkat Vantas, the Bloodroot, the God of Agriculture, and the last of the Zodiac Angels of Old, finally gets to rest in relative peace and quiet.

He isn’t sure how long he sits there, waiting for his wounds to close. But when they do, he stays there for another half-hour or so in silence as the rain peters out, and then flies off.

  
  
  


HAWAII

Latula is a giant dragon, Aranea is a giant scorpion, and Cronus is ready to become a giant serpent at a moment’s notice when they find Rose sitting at the base of a dead volcano, picking the leaves off of a downed tree one by one. She smiles when she sees them.

“I was wondering when you would show up.” she says. “It won’t work, you know. This little plan. The cancer has spread too far.” she chuckles to herself. “Either the universe will end from our influence and you will be unable to do anything to stop it, or something… new will enter this world.” she pauses and points at the sky. “Can’t say what though.”

“Enough words, Eldritch.” says Meenah. “You will die now.”

“Eldritch?” Rose asks, and smirks. “Do I get to have my name back now?”

Latula’s response is to breathe fire all over Rose. when the smoke clears, she brushes soot off her shoulder and smiles. “That won’t work. Goddess of space, remember? I can simulate the lack of oxygen and unmake all of that fire.” she stands, and cracks her knuckles. “Anyway, fun time.” she raises her arms, and her body morphs into a mess of tentacles and teeth.

**STRIFE**

Latula and Aranea go in for the kill, stabbing at and slashing at the thing with claws and pincers. The others launch into attacks at the many hundreds of tentacles. Rose’s cacophonous laughter echoes through the valley in which the fight. Tentacles fly everywhere. Porrim gets slammed into a boulder, Kankri nearly gets his head chopped off, and Cronus dodges an attack which nearly slams him off the mountain he’s chosen to stand on. Rufioh gets grabbed in one and is slowly squished. Horuss and Damara rush to his aid when a dark shape flies overhead through the half-night. Talons grab Horuss up from the ground and crush him. Dave laughs as he drops the god’s corpse, and they all feel his death like a stab to the chest. Damara goes for Rufioh and cuts him loose, before turning her attention to Dave in the sky. Latula does as well, Porrim riding her back with a chainsaw. It’s quite an awe-inspiring sight, seeing a god holding a chainsaw riding a dragon into battle against a giant hawk.

Dave and Latula clash, and Porrim occasionally slashes at Dave’s head. Damara gets on his back and starts stabbing at where she presumes his spine is, but he does a barrel roll and shakes her off, also smacking her with one of his wings into the mountains. Kurloz leaps onto one of Dave’s wings as the giant hawk passes overhead, bringing Meulin with him. They start ripping up his wings, so starts body slamming Latula, shaking the two of them. Meulin loses her grip and resorts to flying. Mituna is busy covering Rose’s tentacles in diseases which are killing them all fairly quickly whenever they get close. She screams in fury and redirects nearly all of her attacks on him. He kills most of the barrage, but enough tentacles get to him to grab him and squeeze his head off like a bottlecap. His blood spurts in a fountain, and his corpse is dropped to the ground. That seems to really set Cronus off, and he goes nuts with zapping white light at Rose. Meenah gets tossed up in the air and lands in a tree nearby.

Dave bites Meulin out of the sky and chews her in his beak. Kurloz becomes enraged and starts stabbing at Dave’s head with his claws. Dave shakes, but he can’t knock the angel loose. He roars in anger, and Kurloz seems to almost laugh in a combination of grief, hatred, and pain. Dave bites a chunk out of Latula’s neck, and the dragon backpedals in panic. Porrim leaps from her back and cuts a long slice into Dave’s beak. Dave screeches and rolls. Kurloz hangs on, but Porrim slides off and is knocked into the mountain wall. Dave snarls and brings his talons down towards her. He crushes her like an insect and screeches in pain as Kurloz goes back to attacking his head. Dave is up against the wall, so Latula flies in and pins him.

“Unhand me, you bitch.” he snarls at her, and she growls back.

He roars and turns back into a human form and lets Latula stumble forwards. Kurloz flips about in the air a little, and Dave does an acrobatic fucking pirouette off the wall and behind Latula, where he turns back into a hawk and pins her to the wall, crushing Kurloz. He slides to the ground, broken, but not dead. Then, he grabs Latula’s head in his broken beak and twists his own, breaking her neck. He flaps backwards, blood spraying everywhere. Five and a half down, six and a half to go.

Damara, Rufioh, Kankri, Aranea, Cronus, and Meenah are too busy concentrating on Rose to notice Dave. Not that it matters, because he’s busy nursing his wounds near the volcano. Speaking of the volcano, although bloody and beaten, Kurloz managed to use some of his power to make it start an eruption process. None of them notice this, however. They’re too busy fighting. Rufioh gets slammed away, and Aranea stabs a wound into Rose’s center mass. The thing screams, and its attacks converge on the giant scorpion. Kankri gets crushed in the chaos, and is gone just like that. Aranea is next, her giant scorpion form shattering, exposing her regular god body to Rose’s wrath, and she screams as she is torn in half. Meenah gets knocked into Cronus, and all that’s left standing against Rose is Damara. She raises her wands and fires bursts of energy, but they do not affect her in the slightest. She keeps going at the angel.

Then, the volcano erupts.

The smoke that’s kicked into the air rises about a mile and a half into the sky, and the flames shoot out in all directions as burning rock falls from the air. Damara can’t stop herself from gasping in surprise. She’s only saved from being crushed by Rose because Rufioh shoves her out of the way and gets crushed himself. The lava will cover his body a few minutes later. Damara flies to higher ground with Cronus and Meenah, grabbing Kurloz on the way up. Dave dives for them, and Damara, Cronus, and Meenah unleash their stronger magical onslaughts. Dave is surprised by this, and is shredded. His human form falls to the ground below, but he does catch himself and flies out of the way before he lands.

“Screw it.” Cronus mutters, and turns to Meenah.

“Depths Snake?” he asks, and she nods. “Of course.” she says.

Cronus steps off of the mountain towards Rose, and unleashes the last of his power at her. Her eldritch horror form shatters, and he kicks his powers into overdrive.

Rose is falling through a seemingly infinite pit that stretches off with blackness on all sides. A giant green serpent coils out from beneath her and circles around her at a large distance, its eyes never leaving hers. Its tail, sharp and triple barbed, wraps around her and stabs at her. She tries to hold it back, and she manages to, for all of a minute, and then he rips her into three pieces. Cronus smiles and roars triumphantly. What he doesn’t expect is for Dave to suddenly show up and jam his sword through Cronus’ skull. The serpent gasps and sputters, gurgling on its own blood. The illusion around it fades, and the earth beneath them begins to shatter. The ground drops away into a pit, the landmass of Hawaii shattering and collapsing. Cronus writhes and thrashes about. Dave goes to pull his stuck-up-to-the-hilt sword out and gets tackled by Kurloz, who Dave stabs about half a dozen times with a dagger. Kurloz breaks his neck and they tumble into the Earth. Falling after them is Cronus still in giant snake form, the hilt of the sword jutting out from his forehead, making him look like some kind of serpentine unicorn. He is gasping and sputtering the whole way down until the Earth closes up on top of the three of them.

Damara and Meenah lay down on the mountain as lava burns the valley below. They hold hands mainly to remind each other that they’re both still there and not dead. They wait for their wounds to knit closed, and then they head off about half an hour afterwards.

  
  
  


MEXICO

Jane, Roxy, Dirk, Jake, Calliope, and Caliborn find their target just sitting in a valley in Mexico.

“It looks kind of pathetic.” Dirk says.

“It’s certainly not weak.” Caliborn points out.

“Try not to get grabbed and cancer-ified.” Jane says.

“Let’s go.” Caliborn says.

The six gods fly in close, and the thing screams at them. The watchers flinch, seemingly understanding it immediately.

“Good god, it wants us to kill it?” Calliope asks.

“Then that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.” Roxy says.

**STRIFE**

Tendrils of flesh shoot up at them, and they all feel… strangely drawn to them. They ignore the urges as best they can and draw their weapons, slashing and burning the vines of meat. They creep closer and closer to the thing, which continues to scream and scream and scream. One of the tendrils whacks Dirk in the face and sends him spinning away through the sky, while a second tendril smacks Jake out of the air and onto the ground. Jane slashes away the tendrils near her with a trident and starts stabbing out the thing’s many eyes. It screams and flails, knocking her away, leaving Calliope with a clear shot to it’s center mass with her wand, charring and scarring its flesh. It thrashes in anger and gets to its full height. Calliope almost physically shrinks when she sees it, being about a third of a mile tall. It brings a tail down towards her, and Caliborn shoves her out of the way and is thrown to the ground for his troubles.

Roxy pulls out a kickass giant sword about three times her size and brings it down into the thing’s back with a giant  _ chunk _ sound. It roars and twists, sending Roxy spinning through the air. Dirk comes around from the back, grabs the sword, and begins to saw into the thing’s spine. It screams and rolls over, crushing Dirk and nearly Caliborn beneath it, the latter saved due to Calliope’s interference. Dirk groans, and the sword gets stuck in its back. It slams Roxy into the ground, and Jake comes around firing bolts of white energy at the thing, burning it. The white bubble around him continues to grow in size, and he snarls at it when it growls at him. His presence in the white bubble chars it simply by getting close. Jane begins trying to pull the sword free from its back and fails in that regard. The thing is busy trying to penetrate Jake’s hope field so it can get him. It manages to succeed and whacks him off into the forest, the hope flickering away as he goes. Its face scarred, it lets its old skin fall away and be replaced with unharmed flesh.

“Oh come on, that’s cheating!” Roxy groans, and it smacks her in the same direction as Jake.

Dirk stands and jumps towards the sword stuck in its back and pulls. It doesn’t budge. So, he stabs it deeper. Which also does nothing, and he grunts in annoyance. He twists it, and the thing screams louder. It writhes and twists on the ground, causing Dirk to be thrown off. Jane blasts the thing in its tail, appearing to be trying to cut it into pieces. It twists around to face her and nearly chomps her up. Calliope takes advantage of its turning and blasts the back of its neck multiple times. Caliborn goes up to the sword on its back as it twists and rips it free from its back with little effort. He immediately jams the sword into its brain, and it writhes and twists. Jane continues going after its tail. Jake and Roxy come back around and Dirk flies back up, and the assault on the thing sort of truly begins.

“I think we’re getting the hang of this!” Jake shouts.

“God no, don’t say that, never say that!” Roxy shouts in response.

As if challenging Jake’s statement, the thing splits in half down the middle into two different creatures. The sword that was once in its skull falls uselessly to the ground.

“That’s not how it works!” Caliborn can be heard shouting over the thing’s roars. “41 is not a composite number!” His answer is a tail to the face that sends him crashing into the trees.

The left one of the creatures bites at Jane and grabs her. She screams, more in terror than in surprise. Both of the creatures take her head and legs in their mouths.

“Janey!” Roxy is shouting. “JANEY!”

They pull and tear her in half. She’s dead, just like that.

The remaining three new gods feel her die. Jake drops to the ground in shock. Roxy screams in a combination of agony and grief. Dirk winces and heads for the sword on the ground. He scoops it up and swings it at the left one of the creatures, cutting its head off immediately. It begins to grow a new, smaller head.

“Guys, I think we gotta burn their stumps or something!” Dirk calls.

Jake swoops in, wreathed in burning hope, and chars away the thing’s new head. The other thing screams and bites at both of them. Dirk swings the sword and slices its head in half, but this second creature seems more durable, instantly restitching its skull. It bites and Dirk gasps as it rips off his left hand. He flies backwards staring at the falling blood in shock.

Caliborn grabs the sword as soon as he drops it and stabs it into the thing’s ‘throat’. It’s screams become gurgles, but it does not slow down one bit. Its tail slams Jake away and knocks Dirk into the ground, before uppercutting Caliborn with a smack to the head and sending him spinning away through the sky and stumbling into the woods. Roxy goes after it with a desire to enact some kickass righteous fury burning in her mind. Calliope follows behind her as Roxy kicks the sword deeper into its throat, then pulls and pulls, bringing it downward and cutting the whole thing’s body in half, then she pulls out the sword and decapitates it. The head writhes on the ground, immediately sprouting new flesh, as its old body melts away like candle wax. The new head slams Roxy away with the force of a battering ram, and she crashes through the trees. Calliope tries to blast its skull open, and it roars and whacks her away.

Dirk comes back around with a sword in his hand and stabs into its skull, puncturing deep. He rips the sword out and tries to stab its heart. The response from it is to roll, crushing him into the ground, then snap him up in its maw. Roxy stumbles in pain as she tries to get up and Jake roars in anger. He comes at it and chars its face, but it seems to become more durable to the attack. Calliope goes to Caliborn and Roxy.

“We can’t stop it.” she says, a thing everyone is only now realizing.

“You’re right.” Caliborn says.

“So what should we do?” Roxy asks, still clutching her chest in pain.

“We make it somebody else’s problem.” Caliborn says.

“Universe toss? Are… are you sure Cal?” Calliope asks.

“Yes.” Caliborn finally says.

Jake’s still fighting when they get there, and ultimately being cut and bruised by its constant never ending attempts to snap him up in its jaws. They raise their arms and combine their powers to open a wormhole. Not just any wormhole, a universal gate. It tears open beneath the thing, and it turns its rage to them as soon as it snaps up Jake. It screams and tries to escape. It whacks Caliborn into a tree, and then is consumed by the wormhole, falling into the void between worlds, where it will drift for eons from its perspective. Then, the wormhole closes.

“It’s over.” Roxy breathes, and Calliope audibly winces.

“Caliborn…” she mutters, goes to him and checks his pulse. She sighs and shakes her head.

“Gone.” she says, and sits down next to Roxy.

“That was pretty crazy.” Roxy says.

“Indeed.” Calliope says.

They don’t say anything else, they just take each other’s hands just to confirm that the other is actually there. They rest like that for a little while. About half an hour after their wounds close, they take to the skies and leave Mexico.

~ The Zodiac Angels of Old ~

Karkat Vantas The Bloodroot God of Agriculture

~ The Gods of New ~

Roxy Lalonde The Thief Goddess of Thieves

~ The Zodiac Angels of New ~

Damara Megido The Clock Goddess of Time

Meenah Peixes The Shark Goddess of the Sea

~ The Twin Watchers ~

Calliope The Poet Goddess of Life


	14. Galactic Cancer

Out in the void between worlds, the thing that was once the 41 god-muses of XX-Beta-12 brushes against Universe “Three”.

Karkat, Damara, Meenah, Roxy, and Calliope all meet back up in Greenland.

“So we’re all that’s left.” Roxy says.

“Yep. We should probably swap around our god titles after we finish fixing the universe.”

“One problem with that.” Karkat says, and everyone turns to him.

“I did the math. Yes, we killed the tumors, but we caused something bigger.” Karkat says, and sighs. “All we did was kill the most noticeable physical manifestations of that cancer. But…” he says with a sigh. “I checked. When we were contained, reality was irreparably changed. We’re the tumors now.”

They all look at each other.

“So what, we have to kill each other?” Calliope asks.

“That’s not necessarily what I’m suggesting-” Karkat begins, and is cut off by Meenah running up to him and running him through with her trident. He makes an _uck_ sound and falls to the ground, first gasping for breath, then choking on blood. Then he’s gone.

“Meenah, you bitch.” Roxy snarls. Meenah turns to her.

“Now we gotta kill all of us, that’s how this has gotta work.”

Calliope fires a blast of energy at Meenah in retaliation, and the angel dodges. Damara fires an attack for her and blows Calliope into dust. Roxy screams and roars, jumping on Damara and slamming her into a wall, trying to push a knife into her chest. She dodges Meenah’s attacks for about twenty seconds until she doesn’t and gets run through.

Then all that’s left on the whole planet is Damara and Meenah, two gods fighting to save their universe with the more severe methods.

“Don’t make me do this.” Damara says, aiming her wands at Meenah, who has her trident raised. “Don’t make me do this.”

“This is how it’s gotta go, Damara. We’re the tumors.” Meenah insists. “We die, our universe heals.” Damara scoffs.

“Says the woman who killed crabby pants in the middle of his speech.” Damara says.

“I never gave a shit about him.” Meenah says. “He was turning out like his brother anyway.”

Meenah throws her trident, and Damara blasts a hole through her eye, killing her instantly. She takes the trident in her chest and stumbles backwards coughing on blood.

Then, she dies.

Billions of years go by, and as the planet’s star collapses into a black hole, the Earth remains untouched, slowly orbiting the massive hole in the cosmos as space dies around it. XX-Beta-12 soon falls utterly silent. All that’s left is a single planet orbiting a black hole under a dark sky.

_“The cancer has spread too far. Either the universe will end from our influence and you will be unable to do anything to stop it, or something… new will enter this world.”_

Something new takes up residence in XX-Beta-12’s pits, and utterly reshapes the planet.

But that is a story for another time.

~~The Inevitable End of All But Me~~

~~XX-Beta-12~~

The Solomon Project

Act I: Ascendance

Act II: Defyers

Act III: Protectors

Act IV: Controllers

Golf-213

Intermission: Zero Day

Act V Act I: Shade

Act V Act II: Shatter

Dimensional Drabbles

Endstück


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